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Ever feel like you’re struggling because you’re not managing money well? Maybe you’re thinking about it all wrong. Start thinking that you’re really managing it for someone else...because you really are.

It’s not really yours. You’re just the current manager of those assets. The money, the home, the cars...where do you think they came from? OK, the cars...maybe Detroit. Doesn’t matter. The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it...

I don’t mind at all when my 401k goes down in value. OK…maybe just a little bit. But’s that’s my emotional side. My intellectual side knows it’s not a bad thing…I can buy more shares of my mutual funds when they’re on sale. Then I’ll have more shares working for me when the market ultimately goes up.

Let’s break it down and look at some numbers. We’ll make the math easy and say I contribute $100 to my 401k every pay period. For this hypothetical example, we’ll assume I’m investing in just one fund inside my 401k…a large company growth fund.

Are you the type that likes double check your TPS reports for the proper cover sheet? Then you may be the type that’s itching to get their tax return off by Valentine’s Day. Hold on there, Trigger. You may be missing a few critical pieces of information…namely your 1099s.

I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. Don’t look to mainstream media for investing advice. They’re in the eyeball business...trying to get more folks to pay more attention so they can sell more ads at higher prices. They’d like you to believe there’s something you should do every day with your money...because if you don’t watch or read and find out what that is...you’ll miss a critical action you should be taking.

Case in point: Check out this recent USA Today Money headline, “Got a 401k? You should be watching earnings season”. The article recognizes the record setting bull market, but cautions if upcoming profit reports don’t beat high expectations...well, the rally may end and your 401k may fall. Inferring that there is some action you should take depending on the outcome.

Remember the good old days...when a triple digit move in the Dow was something that the business channel anchors got all giddy over? The Dow would be up...or down 100 or more points and the breaking news banners would come out in full force.

It was a big deal when the Dow was around 10-thousand. A 100-point move was one-percent. But as the Dow level climbs higher...a 100-point move either way is less impactful percentage wise. At 20-thousand, a 100-point gain is only a half-percent.

1.5.18 It’s the most unloved, disliked, and least cared about bull market ever. So disrespected that American investors pulled nearly a trillion dollars from their mutual funds over the last 5-years. No bull. Remember, bull is bad if you’re full of it, unless we’re talking the market, and then the bull is good. See how crazy Wall Street lingo is.

Take the market...news anchors and reporters on the floor of the New York Stock exchange celebrating the market hitting 25-thousand. It’s technically not the whole market...but an index or a proxy for the market. They’re talking about the Dow, the Dow Jones, the Dow Jones Industrial Average...one and the same.

Remember when you were a kid and still believed in Santa Claus. I heard the rumors at school, that Santa wasn’t real and it was really my parents who put the presents under the tree. I refused to believe it. I tried to avoid those spoiler kids who seemed to take such joy in ruining my Santa fantasy.

But now…I can look forward to the Santa Claus Rally. Yeah…it’s a real thing in the investing world. I said real thing…not a sure thing. Let’s take a look.

12.15.17 We’ve all seen those articles about how much our overpriced coffee cravings cost us today, and what it’s costing us down the road. The ones that take the price of a barista brewed cup at your local Starbucks and multiply that over a month, then show how much that amount invested monthly over 30-years turns out to be. It can be mind boggling.

There was even a recent article from Vanguard laying out this very case. Come on, I’m not giving up my coffee and you aren’t either. Not giving up my tennis even though I probably spend coffee comparable amounts every year on my sport. I’m keeping my Netflix as long as they keep cranking out the likes of Bloodline and Portlandia.

So you can take your coffee shaming superiority right on over to Denny’s if you’d like.